The Perils Of Internet Dating

Most people, who have spent more than a few months dipping their toes into the murky waters of Internet dating, will have amusing tales to tell. Many people will use 'free' dating sites, and two of the most popular ones are OKCupid and Plentyoffish. The latter comes with possibly the worst reputation, and I would argue that this is unfair. Plentyoffish has the largest client base and is seen as a bit of a 'meat market' for anyone who uses it. But there is no guarantee that using a different dating site will improve your chances of meeting a better quality person. After all, many people like myself, have used more than one dating site, so if anything, you may see the profiles of those you've seen before.

In this article, I'll be attempting to tell stories from the accounts of 4 shy people, all with somewhat disastrous stories to tell. I'll get my account out the way first. Well, I wouldn't wanna hog the limelight now would I?

I once met a lady called Sheila from Plentyoffish. My initial reservation was that she had four children, something I stupidly chose to ignore. My initial concern about someone with that amount of children is that their main priority will always be their children, and I have no problem with that. But that was the least of my concerns. Sometimes you just get a bad feeling about something and I waited for her outside Costa Coffee in Portsmouth's Commercial Road from a distance. Unfortunately, my date had the same idea, so for 10 minutes we both hovered outside with me hoping it wasn't her. At 2pm, I walked towards the entrance, as did she. Then the anxiety started.

I bought us both a coffee and then we both found a table at the back of the cafe. During our chat I learned her son wore an electronic tag, and her ex partner (who she had recently split up from) had previously been in prison for armed robbery. She also informed me that she decided to make him jealous by telling him that she had gone on a date with me. I had to immediately think about how I was going to get out of this date without offending her to a point where the father of her four angelic children wasn't going to come after me with a sawn-off shotgun. That's assuming he hadn't already followed her and wasn't already waiting for me outside.

As luck would have it, the conversation never flowed. I suppose there was only so much I could have in common with a gangster's moll. At one point I told her I didn't think the date was going very well and asked her 'rhetorically' if we should call it a day. She agreed and by the time I put my jacket on and stood up, I saw her leaving via the door. I felt pretty pleased with myself, upon glancing at my watch. It was only 2.57pm..

My friend Louise possibly had the most disgusting experience of all of us. She met her date through Plentyoffish, and he turned up in jogging bottoms with mud and paint all over them. He had nasal hair sprouting like a majestic oak tree, which unfortunately didn’t overshadow his awful body odour. At one point, Louise dropped her purse on the floor. She bent over to retrieve it only to be traumatised by the strong aroma of Camembert emanating from his groin. They then sat on a bench by a canal. He was so fat, he couldn’t walk more than 100 yards without puffing and panting. During the date, the man would frequently ask to go back to her place to which Louise would give a stern “no”.

At one point he leant over to give her a kiss, and despite recoiling, she found a bogey on her tongue. Did she spit or did she swallow? Surprisingly, the second date never materialised.

The most unfortunate of all the experiences goes to my friend Ben. His experience comes courtesy of OKCupid. Prior to the first date, there appeared to be a constant stream of sexual innuendos from her that was hardly putting him at ease. Ben seemed unsure whether she was illiterate or just reliant on text speak during correspondence prior to their date. Despite this, he carried on up until the day of the date where he decided to stop emailing and texting her. This seemed to put her in a bad mood where some previous unresolved issues regarding unattended dates became apparent.

Ben was in the bath getting ready for his date with the lovely Rachel, when his phone started ringing. Ben’s dad answered the phone, but because of poor understanding of his son’s phone, seemed confused as to whether she could hear him.

“Ben, it’s that stupid woman on the phone”.

“Tell her I’ll phone her back”, Ben replied.

Later Ben spoke to her and she gave him a piece of her mind. She was convinced he was trying to back out of the date and told him that if that’s what he wants to do, he should be man enough to cancel it and not hide behind his father.

Ben arrived at The Air Balloon in Horley, Surrey, some 30 minutes before her. He texted to inform her he’d arrived and she made her way to the pub to meet him. When she arrived, she recognised some of her fellow pikey friends. Ben spent the majority of this evening being a gooseberry on his own date, while she chatted, shouted and swore with her friends. On 2 occasions, she went outside for a cigarette leaving him inside alone. Had Ben been to the Air Balloon before, maybe he’d be more aware of alternative escape routes, but no. Ben had to see this until the bitter end.

While Ben was on his own, he was able to assess his opinion of his surroundings. He observed a platter of half eaten chicken and scampi pieces and a plate of fag ash seasoned peanuts. There was also a bowl of untouched olives, which seemed out of place for such a classy establishment. Ben also noticed threadbare seats and carpets and observed a pool of sick, which another customer added fresh liquid to. The locals really need to leave that scampi alone.

Rachel came back and she led the conversation in a way Ben was uncomfortable. She was talking about their future, which was a joint venture he wasn’t contemplating. They parted with Ben unscathed, apart from a fag-breath kiss he didn’t ask for. She spent the rest of the week texting him with no reply. Ignorant bastard isn’t he?

Ben’s fortunes did not improve. One day while at work he received unrelated notifications from Plentyoffish. Plentyoffish has a function whereby users can click any one of three buttons to indicate whether they would like to meet the person whose photo they have just seen. But this function has not been thought through properly because if you click ‘maybe’ or ‘yes’, the person will be notified that you wish to meet them but that person will also notice that you haven’t bothered to read their profile. In other words, it looks like the user is randomly clicking buttons.

The notification Ben received was priceless. He received an email saying ‘UglyFatBird wants to meet you’. He finished work to check out her profile only to find she’d deleted it. It’s bad enough that some ugly person wants to meet you, and even worse when she starts hiding from you.

My final story is from my friend Simon, who as far as I know, never went on a date with anyone from a dating site, but did fill out all the online questions on OKCupid to improve the quality of his matches. His first match was a large girl dressed up as a ‘Steam punk’ Queen Victoria, complete with a clockwork bionic eye and a ray gun. Her interests included Larping (life action role play), knitting and being bisexual. This might be a great masturbatory figure to some people but to Simon this was something of a joke.

Another of the initial matches was a girl who was wheelchair bound due to chronic ME and was a polygamist. She already had a husband and boyfriend but was on the lookout for another one.

The mystery as to why Simon became the only one of us who never online dated continues......

#miscellaneous